Hi Tony (or anyone else who knows!) I recently moved from zone 9 to zone 6 and left my extensive collection of fruit trees. I'd like to grow astringent persimmon here for making hoshigaki Japanese dried persimmon. Are there any astringent varieties that produce LARGE fruit that will survive here? And where I can order from? I saw starkbros have Saijo but the fruit is small. It may need to be potted for the first year or two until I find a permanent property to put it in the ground. This last winter low temps were in the teens F generally, only a few days in single digits. So I think cold tolerant down to 0F should be ok. Thanks very much!

looks like there is a graft down there ... wish i could see it better ... is there any chance its a.. lets say... 8 inch piece of scion wood.. and that is where it budded out??? if so .. thats how they do it.. and the only failure is you expectation ... also.. if the bud were at the top... you might be complaining that it broke off in shipping ... i have mail ordered a lot of trees .... and frankly .. this is how its done.. with these types of trees .... [as compared to conifers] .... and there probably isnt anything to complain about ... next time you visit a nursery .. look at their trees ... which were probably mail ordered in winter.. and potted for sale in spring .. im sure you will find many are the same in this regard ... with proper pruning over the next 5 or 10 years.. you can make it into whatever shape you wish ... ken

Take pictures when the tree is blooming, and post here. That can be definitive. Alternatively, look closely on recent growth of the tree's branches. Persimmon male (staminate) flowers usually leave their pedicel (peduncle?) attached, which is another good ID feature. Of course, if this tree has not flowered, you've got nothing to show.

Thanks Corkball and Meg for your response. I hope you both get lots of fruits this fall. How often do you guys fertilize your trees, I was thinking maybe only once in Spring and maybe late summer? I've read they are not heavy feeders so I would go light on the fertilizer since it is a small tree. I'm hoping the summer rains will get the tree growing. Meg, you are right, these trees do go dormant shortly after harvest I assume and lose all their leaves and don't leaf out till spring. Not an attractive tree completely leafless for 6 months! But if I get fruits it will be worth it. We are not use to seeing leafless trees here in Florida in the winter. One of the great things about this tree is I won't have to worry about protecting it from frost/freeze. I lost all my Mango blooms this year due to a freeze we had back in February, it got to (27°) here for several hours, fried all the outer leaves and blooms. It is so sad, had so many mangoes last year and zero this year :o( When I bought the tree it had flowers already but of course due to the shock of planting in the ground the flowers have turned brown and fell off which is to be expected and it's fine because the tree is too small, but it was nice to see blooms on such a small tree at least. I'm glad to hear the tree seems to be an easy care and not too many issues with bugs,. Corkball, exactly why I put the fence up to keep Deer away, they ate all the leaves and blooms on my Meyer Lemon tree so I doubt I'll have any lemons this year either **sigh**. Between Deer and squirrels I'm shocked I have any fruits to pick Lol... Thanks again for sharing your input and experiences.